Twentyone Legends
by Cornuthaum
Summary: The thin line between fact and fiction blurs for those who have made their life and name into legends. Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunade and their little secrets.
1. Orochimaru's 21

1.) Orochimaru is not, was not and will never be a pedophile. Since his defection, he has rescued more orphans from certain death, starvation or slavery than the whole of Konoha has. The fact that all of the children he rescued either died with his name on their lips or bear a cursed seal is another matter entirely.  
2.) He knows what awaits him after death, and because of this he so frantically seeks to escape it. His peculiar looks - the same look that his entire family had - come from a pact so vile and unspeakable that Orochimaru lost control of himself and covered half of the text in vomit out of sheer, undescribable horror. After all, how much would you like to know that your soul belongs to the all-devouring eight-tailed and equally eight-headed Orochi, from birth on? 

3.) Jiraiya was the dancer, Tsunade was the singer and Orochimaru was the musician. Where Jiraiya managed to focus the attention of everyone on his magnificent twists and twirls and Tsunade could all but seduce people with her voice alone, Orochimaru prides himself on the ability to make people cry with emotion with nothing but his music.

4.) Without his assistance early on their way to becoming Sannin, Tsunade would have never become the unsurpassed medical genius that she is. If not for his callously arrogant taunting of Jiraiya, the man would never have found the burning urge to prove something to everyone who'd listen long enough to him to prove something. And while Orochimaru likes to think that the others didn't have anything to contribute to his magnificence, deep down he knows better.

5.) Orochimaru's soul is a virgin. He isn't sure about the bodies he has inhabited ever since, but he himself has never - and will not ever - be a player in the never-ending mating game. He will not make a child suffer the curse of the Orochi if he can prevent it.

6.) He regards surgery as a form of art, not unlike Deidara does with explosions. Usually with the same results, too, because he cares little whether the latest test subject lives to tell the tale or not. It is because of this that he gets along so well with Sasori, because a surgeon never knows all tricks of the trade and sharing most certainly helps to improve ones performance.

7.) If blackmailed into revealing it, he'd admit to missing the Good Old Times in Konoha, before the Hokage mess and the bloody experiments. He has gained a way to escape from the fate that claimed all of his family though, and he realises that such a thing must surely have a price. Still, better a traitor in life than damned in eternity.

8.) While they are fearsome, insane, powerful, freaks of nature or a combination thereof, his former colleagues in the Akatsuki know little of genetic security. He has enough material - from each of them - to, at the very least, create a sibling to them. In some cases, he has enough to outright clone them, but that is an area where not even Orochimaru dares to thread.

9.) He fears death, and because of this he trained himself to become faster, stronger, quicker, more powerful than anyone else. It was not until he was at his absolute best that, for the first time, he considered that no matter how powerful he got to be, someone would be more powerful than him. It was after this conclusion that he began to train himself to be better, not merely more powerful. It is because of this that he has survived so much for so long, because with a few exceptions, he is the best at everything. Everything but being human.

10.) He is vain, more so than even Tsunade and Jiraiya combined, and takes great care to make the impression his clothes give have a lasting effect. Of course, as with anything else, even this habit has a reason. After all, how many people will take their enemy seriously if he runs around with a barely covered chest and wearing a big. purple bowed ribbon over their ass? More than once their ridiculous appearance has helped the Sound shinobi achieve victory... at the cost, of course, of wearing a purple ass-bow.

11.) Orochimaru considers himself to be genuinely evil. He has accepted and embraced the fact that he will betray everything and everyone, that he will do anything to avoid death. There is no price too great to avoid eternal damnation, and this is his life, the never-ending attempt at avoiding the fate of every man.

12.) He hates, nay, despises the very notion of a pre-set destiny. He is his own man, shaping his own future with his every action. He refuses to believe that some supernatural entity can set the path of one's future - an understandable reaction given what he knows his fate is. Orochimaru is, in this regard, wiser than most, appreciating the difference between fate and destiny.

13.) The Kusanagi is more than a tool to him, it is an extension of himself. When he watches Uchiha Sasuke clumsily fumbling around with the very blade that moves like quicksilver while in his own hands, he doesn't know whether to laugh at or mock the "prodigy". In addition to his unparalleled and unheard-of control of his Kusanagi, he'll never forget the look on the faces of The Team when he first dislodged the thing from his mouth. Truly, those were the times.

14.) When it comes to creating, analyzing and dissecting jutsu of all kinds, he is the greatest genius in the history of the Elemental Countries. Not even the computer-like mind of Uchiha Itachi can compete with him on this level, and Orochimaru knows this. It is because of this that no-one with the exception of his former teammates, his teacher and maybe, just maybe taijutsu-masters like Maito Gai can stand up to him. Unless they wish to end up facing an enemy that can pick apart all their little tricks within seconds and explout their weaknesses without mercy.

15.) He got his place amongst the Akatsuki by entering their hideout during one of the - at that time - semiannual meetings and dissolving the first idiot that tried to jump him with one of the most unrelentingly cruel acid techniques he knew. It left an impression, too, both in the minds of the other Akatsuki and on the ground - the bent and twisted skeleton remains, to this day, fused to the stone as a warning that not every weary-looking traveller is easy prey.

16.) He spent a regular run in the Konoha ANBU, and even to this day, when he performs unspeakable experiments on other sentient beings he is sure that no matter what he does and to whom, it will not ever be as terrible, inhuman and cruel. After all, he gifts only the best and the brightest with his cursed seal and doesn't murder the righteous and innocent for money alone.

17.) Orochimaru has lied to Hyuuga and gotten away with it. He has sparred with Uchiha and preserved his techniques. He has eluded Inuzuka trackers and Aburame assassins. He fears no clan in Konoha, living or dead, because he knows that they can not match him. He is only wary of those no-named students, those without a grand past to their names, because he knows as one of their kind himself that the greatest of the great oftentimes start out at rock bottom.

18.) Uchiha Itachi is by far the worst opponent Orochimaru has encountered in battle in his overly long life so far, and there is good reason to it. The snake summoner fights by showering his enemies with the deadliest of ninjutsu known to man, while at the same time picking their techniques apart and demolishing them through using the flaws of these techniques. Unfortunately, Itachi does the same, and with the added benefit of the Sharingan doing things the old fashioned way - stabbing him with the Kusanagi until he stops moving - isn't an option either.

19.) It was he who taught Anko everything she knows about tea - how to enjoy it, how to brew it, how to properly serve it. Orochimaru has, under three different names, prepared tea for every daimyo of the elemental countries and considers this his greatest success of all things not related to the shinobi world.

20.) He knows Kabuto better than Kabuto knows himself. While the silver-haired sadist believes that he owes allegiance to no-one, that he is free to do as he pleases and betray whomever he wants, Orochimaru knows that Kabuto is bound by his past as surely as if he were in irons. Kabuto will forever make himself feel inferior because he lacks a past and constantly betrays and double-crosses his own future.

21.) Orochimaru dies unrepentant. He had gone so far as to taint his very soul with the darkest of techniques to avoid it, but as life bleeds out of him nonetheless, he is content with the knowledge that his murderer will find no peace in life or death. The Cursed Seal was more than just a shortcut to power, it was a funnel for the very curse that once plagued his own soul and blood. Uchiha Sasuke will find that even if he restores his clan, there will be no peace in life or death for him or them.

----

All of this was written before the sad, sad mess that the revelation of our favorite hero's parentage and the real antagonist have wrought. I reject reality and canon and substitute it with my own.


	2. Jiraiya's 21

Twenty-one things one needs to know about one Jiraiya... or not.

1.) Jiraiya spent four months, three weeks, two days, eleven hours and thirty-nine minutes practicing his grand entrance sequence, to the exclusion of anything but sleep and food. It is because of this that he gets so miffed when someone insults it. After all, those who mock him have yet to try hopping around on one foot in a pair of uncomfortable geta.

2.) He is the only man to ever take a direct hit from Tsunade who lives to tell the tale. Where Orochimaru swapped bodies and Tsunade regenerated, Jiraiya was content with nigh-invincibility in life. He thinks he got the best deal of his team.

3.) There is little about sex and sexuality that Jiraiya has not explored in-depth. Yet, while he is no homophobe by any means, performing with another man never resulted in the same kind of extatic pleasure he gained from doing the same with women.

4.) Jiraiya is the only person, living and dead, to know why Orochimaru so desperately seeks immortality. He is the only one who was able to see past the hunger for knowledge and into the depthless, abyssal fear that lurked in the mind of his pale comrade.

5.) He is an orphan, not knowing his origins to his dying day. His burning desire to carve his name into the tablets of eternity stems from lacking a past, and he succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. While he often suspected who and what his parents where, he could never prove it.

6.) His team broke his heart twice over. His nerdy, pale brother betrayed everything they fought for together in the past, broke all bonds of comraderie and cast down all pretense of humanity later in their lives. His brash, quasi-royal sister broke his heart when she gave herself up, when she cast away the spirit he had helped nurture, when she gave up on the memories of their bond. There are times when Jiraiya genuinely wants to kill Tsunade and Orochimaru for those reasons alone.

7.) Despite the fact that his white hair and red face marks never made him good with disguises, Jiraiya is an expert infiltrator. But where others creep silently through the night, clad in grey and green, Jiraiya dresses in the most expensive of garbs, wields his rougish smile like a scythe and gets by virtue of daring and charisma what others fail to achieve by sneakery and silence.

8.) Morino Ibiki will never know it, but it was the white-haired toad summoner who rescued him from the torture-chambers that disfigured him so. Jiraiya, after all, cared for his children, and none of the fools who dared to lay hand upon his family escaped his wrath - even though it took him almost two decades getting the last ones.

9.) On the subject of children, Jiraiya has surprisingly few. Tsunade, in her infinite wisdom, taught him and Orochimaru the best contraceptive jutsu known - or not known - by mankind. He has left a child in every major city of the elemental countries, but, in his own, subtle way, he sees to it that they are properly cared for.

10.) He once wrestled a giant bear into submission, after refusing to back down from the stupid, stupid bet he had made with Orochimaru after a cup or two of sake too many. Still, the multitude of gashes the animal left upon him were well worth the look of surprise on Orochimaru's and Tsunade's face when he rode back on the majestic animal.

11.) Tsunade and Jiraiya are the only people in the world who saw Orochimaru cry. It was when they arrived - after a long, violent campaign against the Grass - at his home for a quick snack that they found his remaining family butchered. While Orochimaru might not have had parents any more, the sight of his brutally murdered sister was enough to drive even the hardiest of sannin to tears.

12.) The three of them, after finding out who was responsible for that started a campaign of bloodshed and terror that the Waterfall Village has yet to recover from. It is one of the few places Jiraiya never, ever visits, because he knows that the demonized version of the sannin the Waterfall knows isn't so far off the truth at all.

13.) He created the needle-guardian hair technique on accident, after an embarassing match against Orochimaru during their shared jounin exam. When Orochimaru managed to miss his shoulder and instead bit into his - long and luscious, so he said afterwards - hair, the shocked Jiraiya simply pushed a lot of chakra into said hair. Orochimaru still hasn't forgiven Jiraiya for the indignity of having to eat through a straw for two months.

14.) There is a special reason why he hates Uchiha Itachi more than any other of the Akatsuki. Just as he did with his children, Jiraiya cared about his students - and even if cute little Miko-chan hadn't become as famous as the boy who grew to be the Fourth, killing one of his former students was, in his eyes, an open declaration of war.

15.) He owns enough clothing to outfit the entire Hidden Leaf thrice over, and only one in ten pieces is nin-wear. He's a smartly dressed man, he will admit that to everyone. And, after all, those who mock him for it should see to it that they look as great as he does when they grow as old as he did.

16.) Jiriaya is a passionate man, living to the fullest in every action - and he has proven this time and time again, from the first time he won an eating contest against three Akimichi to the last time he and Tsunade tried to drown their sorrows and see who'd last longer. Jiraiya is a man who can enjoy the best and worst of food and drink equally, because he knows that every meal might be his last.

17.) He made the crystal scrying ball for the Third. It is his greatest masterwork, the proof of his ability as a Master of Seals. It is this item and the theories involved that made the Third sign the decree that Jiraiya needn't follow the ordinary chain of command or rules of conduct of the Leaf, that he could - and should - do as he pleased. Jiraiya considers it to be the best deal of his life.

18.) Jiraiya hopes Tsunade dies before he does, because if not, he knows that she'll resurrect his carcass, beat him until he'd wish he was dead again and then have him clean up the mess his last will would create. Still, he figures that it'd be nice, if only to see the horrified, disgruntled or panicked faces of all those idiots who'd have to deal with everything from marriage contracts to assassination attempts because of the information he will unleash with his death.

19.) He has never been in a committed relationship - some would say that he is afraid of marriage. Those who say that, though, usually end up being chased by hallucinogen-carrying toads, sinking into suddenly appearing swamps or ending up with otherwise unidentifyable maladies. And yet, despite his vindictiveness, he knows they're all wrong - the only woman he'd ever marry is as broken a wreckage as he is when it comes to commitment, and he doubts that he'd survive a full-on hit a second time.

20.) Jiraiya knows that, for all his passion and zest for life, he has a dark side. He knows that a moment of inattentiveness could lead to depravity on a scale that would send Orochimaru screaming, clawing his eyes out. He knows that one moment of laxity could spawn a lifetime of madness, and because he knows all this he acts upon it, always confining himself to bonds unbreakable. And yet, it is because of this restraint that he grows above and beyond the call of duty, both to himself and others.

21.) Jiraiya has been there, has done that and he has the scars to prove it. He has suffered the biting cold of the uppermost reaches of Glacier Country as well as the parching heat of the desert sun, he knows the unrelenting fury of the oceans as well as the gentle flow of any river. He knows every type of animal, the myriad of insects that exist everywhere. He knows everything and everyone, and Life itself knows him.

--

All of this was written before the sad, sad mess that the revelation of our favorite hero's parentage and the real antagonist have wrought. I reject reality and canon and substitute it with my own.


	3. Tsunade's 21

1.) Her hands are a dichotomy. One moment, they deliver the most powerful healing techniques known to mankind, carefully bandage those wounds that can not be healed by chakra alone and deliver other life-saving medicines to those in need. But then, in the next moment, she can use these same hands to cleave through steel plate armor, can use her fists to shatter the foundations of a castle and can rip apart grown men with the same effort one puts into ripping wet tissue. Neither of her two teammates ever understood how someone with such an overwhelming destructive capability could be such a gentle healer at times.

2.) She enjoys hanging out with Maito Gai. While he is an extraordinary oddball, he is perhaps the most rock-solid secret keeper in all of Konoha. And, despite his dislike of all things alcohol, he is a man who can hold his own in the face of booze very, very well. And, once she looked beyond the garish spandex suit and the odd behaviour, she saw that Maito Gai truly was everyone's friend. Even hers.

3.) Despite what her pink-haired apprentice likes to think, her strength is natural. While her entire family is strong, she is a freak of nature, the first-born of a bloodline she will forever deny to the world. She knows the gift is hereditary, but then, she admits that she's too old, too bitter and too jaded to bear some sprogs.

4.) Tonton is her personal experiment, the first, last and only time she gave in to the burning desire as a scientist, gave in to the very aspect of her craft that let her see the world through Orochimaru's eyes for a few, fleeting moments. The result of it was threefold: First, Tonton is an extraordinarily long-lived, resilient and smart piglet, second, she understands Orochimaru's unholy fascination with things Man Was Not Meant To Dabble With, third, she has destroyed every single and last note about the process involved and has sworn, once again, to destroy everything Orochimaru does in this regard.

5.) She did not feel betrayed when Orochimaru left the Leaf, leaving behind atrocious experiments and the shattered shells of humans. No, he had betrayed her far, far worse when he all but mocked her for the death of Nawaki. Her, she who had stood by his side when they avenged his family. It is because of this that she resents Orochimaru even after decades. Loyalty is one thing, but family is ten times as important. Too bad hers is dead.

6.) She is responsible for Shizune ending up in a great number of embarrassing situations. Because the girl - woman, now - never had the benefits of an intrusive, annoying bastard and an arrogant, ruthless bastard of a teammate to harden her to the realities of what men really are, she decided to take matters into her own hands. These days, Shizune is pretty adept at navigating through cities, half-drunk and naked without getting spotted.

7.) Ironically enough, she was good friends with Hoshigaki Kisame until the sword-bearer decided to come after Naruto again. Their shared love for booze, play and debauchery - and their similar background of blood and murder - saw one of the most unlikely friendships in the world of shinobi gambling prosper. The fact that he wasn't afraid of her stone-rending strength and that she could shred him even with his precious chakra-devouring blade at hand helped a lot... after all, respect is easier to give and gain between equals than between superior and servant.

8.) She is the only person to win a drinking contest against Orochimaru, ever. If only because her pale-faced oddball of a teammate had just come back from a mission, all but out of chakra and dead tired. She considers this her greatest victory against him, because no matter what one can say about Orochimaru, he can hold his booze better than just about anyone.

9.) She is the first Hokage, ever, to realize that a shadow Clone can do the annoying paperwork just as well as the real deal, and the subsequent joyful drinking binge lasted just about long enough for her chakra control to slip and the memories of hours of tireless paperwork signing rushing back into her brain. Ever since then, she has abstained from alcohol during the hours of chakra-made slave work.

10.) Tsunade is the first and only person, ever, to manage to out-eat Naruto in a ramen-eating contest. His demonically enhanced metabolism doesn't hold a candle to the finest and most perfectly controlled body in the world, after all, and even though she doesn't touch ramen for three years after that, the face Naruto made when he realized he lost is truly a precious memory.

11.) While she loathes the paperwork that comes with her office, she is the only Hokage in the history of the leaf to leave none behind when she dies. If she'd known that, of course, she would've slacked off for a few weeks... after all, if she had to worm her way through a backlog of a few months worth of paperwork, her successor should have had to do so, too.

12.) She is a master cook. She knows every 'Secret Recipe' of the Fire Nation and most of those from abroad. She has prepared everything from a classic Earth Nation Stick-With-Pig to the most exotic fish dishes of the Water Nation. She is less proud to admit that she did most of that to kill people with poison, though, and delights in those rare few moments she can indulge in this most unlikely of hobbies.

13.) She can - and has - slept in every environment the Elemental Countries have to offer. From the heavy rainstorms of Rain Country to the abyssal volcanic clefts of the westernmost reaches of the Earth Nation, from between taking shelter in the artificially created wave-breakers of Hidden Mist to the highest treetops of the Land of Bears, she has been there and invariably spent at least a night - or, in some cases, day - there. But, loath to admit as she is, there is no place like Konoha.

14.) She was the arsonist of their team. While Orochimaru occupied whatever guards tried to stop them and while Jiraiya was trying to clear his head from the hangover, she had set up the incineration charges, prepared a few experimental liquid-based explosives and generally changed the status of whatever room the team was in at the time from 'Safely Habitable' to 'Would you like to be fried in that?'.

15.) Shizune learned to fear hot springs and remote inns. She has no idea how Tsunade does it, but since she inevitably ends up in a myriad of horribly awkward situations at these locations only, she knows it's the doing of her master. If she realized that this is because Tsunade tries to have her find a man before it's too late, before poor little Shizune is too settled in her ninja ways to stop. Alas, it is another wish Tsunade will never see to come true. A pity, really.

16.) Tsunade has escaped from some of the most vicious predators in the known world. She managed to outrun a pack of Four-Fang Flayers during her last visit in the Land of Lightning, she managed to get away from one of the great white sharks of the Mist - she is among the six people in the world to ever do so - but most importantly she has evaded the most ferocious beast of all for years on end. Tsunade has escaped her debtors for years, and it's unlikely that they'll ever catch up. Even if she sits still in a village full of heavily armed murderers at her command. Especially if she sits still in a village full of heavily armed murderers at her command.

17.) She has managed to get Hatake Kakashi to show up on time when he is called. Everyone suspects that she threatened him with bodily harm, that she threatened to set his Icha Icha on fire or that she used some other horror as leverage against him. Nothing like this happened. She merely told him that if he didn't Sakura would take over his next urology examination and left it at that. Ever since then and just for her, Kakashi comes when he is summoned.

18.) She reacts unfavorably to certain songs being sung in her presence. No-one really understands why - after all, for their kind of song, the one you bellow along with loudly when you're drunk as hell, these songs are pretty tame - but no-one asks her about it either. If they knew that it was her - her and her team - that made these select few songs they would understand. But it's another secret that'll die with the four of them.

19.) Since her arrival in Konoha, she has refereed thirty-nine 'duels' between Gai and Kakashi, has saved Shikamaru from his mother twenty-seven times, thrown some idiot out of the window twenty-one times and has taught Sakura eighteen new jutsu. But she has visited Naruto in his home only twice, and she cherishes these moments all the more for their rarity.

20.) She helped out a lot with adding her own face to the Hokage Monument. Not out of pride, ambition or something like that, no, because she realized that the people - her people - needed a symbol, a rallying flag in the turbulent times that their village would be going through. Her ability to cleave rock like ordinary men did with cardboard came in handy, too.

21.) Tsunade dies in a way she never expected, from old age. Surrounded by her successor and his family, by her friends and his friends and their friends. The eternally young grandmother of the Leaf dies happy, knowing that her legacy - and her name, too - will live on for a long, long time.

I disavow all knowledge of what has been revealed about Jiraiya. I will continue to picture him as a strange, if honorable man, not someone who abandons his godson to the wolves. (If you do not understand why this is so bad, consider that 'godson' makes Naruto /family/ to Jiraiya in a feudal Japanese setting such as Naruto). 


End file.
